Today has been a very frustrating day and there are a few people that I wouldn’t mind taking out. You know those kind of days, don’t you? As I was searching for something to write about today I noticed there was a distinct slant to my searches. I started by searching on the word blood and it just went down hill from there. Of course, right off the bat, I found something I thought was so cool and proceeded to try and find out where it could be purchased. Not as easy as it sounds. A lot of companies use different names for the same product, so what could be called a bloody knife on one site is called halloween knife on another. Anyway, after more than a two hour exhaustive search online and on the phone I discovered that the item was discontinued. This just pissed me off. It happens a lot actually, but on days like this it really sends you over the edge. I won’t mention the item, because I don’t want you lusting after it like I am and then getting up in my face because I wrote about something that you can’t have. So, my search for blood continued and I came across this cool little item. Depending on what site you go to it can be called anywhere from Bloody Bookmark to Liquid Bookmark. For my purposes (and mood) I’m going with Bloody Bookmark. This bookmark is actually made in Japan from hand poured silicone, so no two are alike. Depending on which site you purchase from it also comes in a milk version (white) and mercury (dark grey). Can you guess my favorite? The Bloody Bookmark retails at $9.99 from Thinkgeek.com, but other sites also sell it in a three piece set for $29. Just think of all the fun you could have with this. No one says it has to be used as a bookmark. If you plan on buying this though, be prepared for the dumbass jokes that will get repeated over and over. This bookmark can be especially dangerous if you are a woman reading in public. Every guy will think he’s being cute and original when he says, “Excuse me, but I believe your book is bleeding.”

Halloween was a big success at our house this year. We had 164 trick-or-treaters which is more than we had last year. A lot of that is due to the fact that we live in a new area that is still being built up, so next year will be even more. As for the unofficial Neighborhood Decoration Competition that I mentioned last week, we won hands down. All is right with the world, though some neighbors swear to outdo us next year. Considering that we already have some great ideas, I doubt it. The spiderweb came out really well. People were totally freaked out at having to walk under it. As promised I took some pictures of it during the building, but unfortunately completely forgot to take a picture after the first step when I tied the three ropes together. You can get an idea of what it looked like by looking at the first picture. I started with a knot in the middle and slowly worked in a spiral until I reached the edges tying an overhand knot at each intersection. Getting the tensions just right was a little tough because I knew it would be a lot different once it got put in place. Using a overhand knot, though, allows you to slide it up and down on the basic structure to adjust it. The whole process including measuring time took about 4 hours, but it’s reusable which will make next year a lot easier. It went up into place quite easily, but the worst part was getting the spider positioned so it wouldn’t weigh down the web. Take a look at the pictures we took during the making of the web and the final product in place. Unfortunately the web doesn’t show up so well in the final picture, but it looked great and you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Now that we are getting down to the wire on Halloween I want to pass on some things that you can do to spook up your crib a little more. A lot of the stores are running out of things and so is your wallet, so it’s a good time to get the creativity juices flowing. Every year we try to add a new thing to our house for Halloween. Up until now we have always had a 6′ spider web hanging up on our porch with a big spider on it. This year I got a bee up my butt and decided that wasn’t enough. I started looking online for anyone who had built a giant spider web. I’m talking about a 20′+ spider web and that means the actual spider web being 20′+ not counting the attaching ropes. While I did find some good tutorials none of them were quite as big as I want it. I want it stretched from the roof of my porch and across the lawn to attach to some trees on the other side of the sidewalk. Scary Hubby always rolls his eyes when I come up with these ideas, but he happily goes along. We have had some new people move in around the neighborhood who have sworn to beat us at the Best Decorated House competition and I can not allow that to happen.We never unveil our decorations until the day of Halloween. We want people to see it for the first time on Halloween night to get the maximum scare.  Anyway, while the tutorials weren’t for big enough spiderwebs, I figured I would just use the same technique with more rope. I bought 600′ of white nylon clothing line. I figured the cotton would deteriorate over time since it is usually snowing or raining here on Halloween. Most of the people online that had done it, built it in place. Since we don’t like people to know what we are doing in advance we can’t really build it on the spot. So, our back yard will have to do. I thought we would just do it on the lawn (yeah, I know what you’re thinking dickhead) but Scary Hubby just had the idea of stretching it between the fences. That way there’s no bending over (I still know). Now you could just go the easy route and buy the mega one shown here from the Spider Web Man for $149.95, but I’m not willing to do that when I can build it for $20 and have it exactly the way I want. Of course, if you are the dickhead I think you are you’ll probably buy it. I’ll post some pics when we build it.

I took my usual trip to Target to check out their Halloween stuff. Unfortunately I was a little late this year, so a lot of the cool stuff I had seen online had sold out. Drat! I did make one great purchase, but it’s not on the Target website strangely. So you obviously can’t order it. You’ll just have to go into the store. It’s made specifically for Target, so I doubt you can buy it anywhere else. I took a not so good picture of it, so you can at least see what it looks like. It’s a very short pile velvet and then the skull part is raised with a higher pile. Contrary to the picture it is very black. I had to lighten the pic so the skull would show up. If you look at it in a certain light you can’t even see the skull. It is solid black on the back, so if you ever fall out of your skull mood just turn it over. There are a lot of skull pillows out there, but I really like the simplicity of this one. They also had a white pillow with Halloween words written all over it like scary, boo, halloween and stuff like that in different fonts. It’s cute, but specifically Halloween so I didn’t want it. Both pillows cost $12.99 each, so I quickly snapped up two of the Skull Pillows for my house.

Woo hoo!! It’s the first day of October and you know what that means… it’s almost Halloween!! Well, in my book it’s Halloween all month long. Actually it might just be all year long, but this is my favorite month of the year. I will be covering all things Halloween this month. From decorations to recipes to costumes. Not today though, because I just have to talk about this bed first. I have been waiting my whole life to find a bed that fit my personality and would look good in our house. I’ve searched in antique stores, online, department stores, garage sales etc. and never found anything until today. I was finally looking through my latest collection of catalogs and came across this French Gothic Iron Bed. It’s so gorgeous and exactly what I have been waiting for.  Now I just have to come up with an extra $3000. Anyone willing to chip in? Luckily Scary Husband agrees that it’s awesome, so hopefully that bad boy will be sitting in our bedroom soon. Until then I will tape the picture to our current bed and just pretend. This bed will look so good in my castle one day. You know the one, right? The $15 million dollar one for sale in Great Britain? I’m still $100,000 short, but almost there.

I, like many women, love hats. I obsessively buy them thinking I will look fabulous in them and then often times don’t have a place to wear them. The fancier the better. Let’s face it though. How many places can you wear an elaborate hat to? I have now found this fantastically creepy Spider Hat that I just have to buy. Unfortunately it’s $145, so it will take a little convincing to get Scary Hubby to agree that I need it. Luckily he loves when I wear a hat, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Plus, all of my hats look really good displayed in our house. So if I never find a day to wear it besides Halloween I can say it’s just part of the house decor.

I know it’s a little early for most people to be thinking about Halloween, but not me. Every year we try to outdo ourselves and everyone else on the block. The only way to do that is to have your eyes open all year round. I have been buying remote controlled spiders for years and have never found one that really works well or is all that realistic. A while back I ordered one from the UK and it finally arrived. Unfortunately I could not seem to find this guy here in the US, so I had to wait. This Radio Controlled Spider is far and away much better than all the ones I’ve seen. I got the Black Widow, but it is also available in a Tarantula, but I’m not sure you can get that one anymore. You’d have to look around. It was designed by the Natural History Museum as an educational toy. Yeah, right. Maybe an education in how to scare people out of their minds. Anyway, he measures quite big at approx. 12″ wide and 10″ long and runs on 6 AA batteries and 1 9V battery. Like other radio controlled spiders you can hear a little motor, but the plus with this one is the look and movements which are far superior to any I’ve seen before. I can’t wait to try it out on Scary Hubby, though he’s used to my attempts to scare him, so I don’t know how well that will work.

I found this fantastic skull over at Z Gallerie. They always surprise me with their cool little scary items that they come up with now and then. This Metallic Skull is another one of those nice surprises. It’s not that big at 7″ x 4.5″ x 5.25″, but with the high shininess factor you probably wouldn’t want it any bigger. It will pack quite a punch on it’s own. You could even hang it from the ceiling and use it as a disco ball. I absolutely love this little skull! It reminds me of something in a movie, but I’m drawing a blank at the moment. I’m sure I’ll wake up at some point in the middle of the night and remember it. I’ll post it when I think of it, but until then you will just have to keep refreshing my page and breathlessly await my update. Not going to do that? WTF? What kind of stalker are you anyway?

As I have stated before, I am not a fan of wallpaper. Wallpaper is a PAIN to remove when you get tired of it, so I swore off wallpaper years ago. Of course ever since I said that I keep finding more and more wallpaper that I want. Must control myself and not get any…ever. Well maybe this one. Camille Rose Garcia is an amazing artist that creates the most visually creepy and amazing images. Ms. Garcia creates everything from paintings to dolls to books. She has fans out there that are devoted to her unusual art and create amazing tattoos from it. She even created the cool wallpaper on the left, but at about $200 a roll maybe I will have to settle for one of her prints…or not. They start at $400. Maybe she makes coasters?

Once again I received a great photo from a reader. This one is of a very creepy looking tree at the side of the road.  As usual I tried to find the origin of this picture, but with no luck. Makes me wonder if it wasn’t manipulated. I wish this was in my yard. It would scare my neighbors to death and they’d never sleep. What a great Halloween decoration! Some plots of land have all the luck.

*Thanks Joe1785 for the picture.